Is Fire Emblem mainstream?

[NotYourKindOfPeople]

I've heard many fans say that Fire Emblem is a mainstream IP, but is it though? The most selling game in the series has sold 4 million copies, which is very little compared to Nintendo's other popular games like Mario Odyssey (25 mil) or TLOZ: Breath of the Wild (30 mil). Thoughts? 

[lenticular]

It's a sliding scale, not a simple binary toggle. It's obviously less mainstream than Mario, Pokémon, Animal Crossing, Zelda, etc. But it's equally obviously more mainstream than some arbitrary indie game, let's say Wargroove. And at the same time, Zelda and Animal Crossing are less mainstream than Mario and Pokémon. And Wargroove is more mainstream than any of the numerous indie games that only releases on Itch and sell about 57 copies.

Or you can ask questions like, "is Fire Emblem sufficiently mainstream to...?" Which in some cases will be answered "yes" and in some cases will be answered "no". Is it sufficiently mainstream to be a lead feature in a Nintendo Direct? Sure. Is it sufficiently mainstream to be turned into a major Hollywood movie? Not at all.

[ciphertul]

“Oh no it has mainstreamed, it has all MAINSTREAMED!” 
Yeah like they said above it’s a scale not a yes/no question.

[𝐍𝐲𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐥]

It depends on how the series is doing at any given moment, back before Awakening released and the series was struggling? Nah, definitely not mainstream. After Awakening? You can make a case of the series being mainstream, especially after Three Houses and Engage's release.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Fire Emblem is approximately the same popularity as Persona now. Which isn't "mainstream" persay, but it's as popular as a JRPG that isn't Pokemon, Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest gets. And it's even more of an achievement since strategy games are even more niche than normal JRPGs.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I would definitely say it's the mainstream example of its SRPG genre for the last twenty years. Few other names have lasted half as long with continual entries. Fewer still have emerged into the realm of HD 3D graphics - higher budget game development rather than "releases concurrently on Mobile/IOS systems". I feel like, anecdotally here in the west, XCOM Enemy Unknown is the more played game than any individual FE, but I lack the sales figures to back that up. And still Fire Emblem coasts on its brand recognition via Smash Bros which all of us know and play. Sakurai-willing, there will always be room for more blue haired sword lords

[Parrhesia]

People who don't know anything about games have osmosed that Mario / Call of Duty / Warcraft exist.

People who don't consider themselves gamers but play from time to time have osmosed that Fire Emblem exists. A lot of people who are now vaguely aware of what FE is, and that absolutely wasn't the case a decade ago. Still, big difference between that and being the kind of game that has cut-through with random people.

[Armchair General]

Honestly, I think that the series became second rate ever since Roy and Marth appeared in Smash. Nowadays, it's still living in the shadows of an lot of greater stuff; but it's not as obscure as it used to be

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

It's not "mainstream" to the broader cuplture, in ways that Mario, Sonic,  and FIFA are. But I would say it's "Nintendo mainstream". Most Nintendo fans, even those who don't play it, know what it is. Gamers as a broader group, it could go either way.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Shanty Pete's 1st Mate
Typo.

[Fabulously Olivier]

4 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

People who don't know anything about games have osmosed that Mario / Call of Duty / Warcraft exist.

People who don't consider themselves gamers but play from time to time have osmosed that Fire Emblem exists. A lot of people who are now vaguely aware of what FE is, and that absolutely wasn't the case a decade ago. Still, big difference between that and being the kind of game that has cut-through with random people.

True. But Three Houses helped a lot. I remember a really casual gamer coworker bringing it up in the office, and that was surreal. It felt like my series had finally grown up.

 

And then it won the Players Voice, which was also pretty huge. That's the one TGA Award that really matters (or did before Genshin fans expected that any win would result in them getting goodies - now I just expect the votes to have no semblance of integrity from now on).

[Randoman]

I'd say Fire Emblem is not mainstream to the general public/casual gamers, but it is to moderately-versed/hardcore gamers. I mean, it's pretty hard to get a game series to be as well known and mainstream as Mario, Pokemon, or Call of Duty to both gamers and non-gamers alike. Though at the same time, that's a ridiculous standard to set for most game series (especially game series with a learning curve as steep as Fire Emblem's).

13 hours ago, NotYourKindOfPeople said:

The most selling game in the series has sold 4 million copies

That's Fire Emblem: Three Houses, correct?

Since it's kind of related to the topic: does anyone know if Engage's first week/month sales were higher than Three Houses' first week/month sales? I ask since I want to know if the Fire Emblem series sales/popularity is still growing with each new/non-remake game release or not.

[Armchair General]

55 minutes ago, Randoman said:

Since it's kind of related to the topic: does anyone know if Engage's first week/month sales were higher than Three Houses' first week/month sales?

It's doing slightly better than 3H, but it's not that big of an difference

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Is it mainstream in the "EVERYONE knows who Mario, Pikachu, and Lara Croft are" or "EVERYONE knows Crash Bandicoot was the PS1 mascot" or "EVERYONE knows what Halo and Final Fantasy are"? No. Is it still "mainstream"? I'm gonna say yes, because it's been a very successful series since the 3DS plus there have been FAR too many internet memes about its representation in Smash Bros., the vast majority of gamers probably have some idea of the existence of FE.

[Jotari]

Video games still aren't mainstream.

[NotYourKindOfPeople]

6 hours ago, Armchair General said:

It's doing slightly better than 3H, but it's not that big of an difference

Is it though? I heard the pre-orders were higher but I highly doubt it because I don't see nearly as much discussion/fanarts/merchandise on it as 3H. 

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, NotYourKindOfPeople said:

but I highly doubt it because I don't see nearly as much discussion/fanarts/merchandise on it as 3H. 

Hey, it takes an while for people to draw shit. Plus, they usually have some other commissions to uphold instead of dropping everything for an new game.

[NotYourKindOfPeople]

21 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Hey, it takes an while for people to draw shit. Plus, they usually have some other commissions to uphold instead of dropping everything for an new game.

I am not saying it undersold or something, but I think it is safe to say that it didn't cause the same boom of hype as 3H. Granted, 3H got a boost in sales due to the pandemic but Engage just doesn't feel that talked about in general. 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, NotYourKindOfPeople said:

I am not saying it undersold or something, but I think it is safe to say that it didn't cause the same boom of hype as 3H. Granted, 3H got a boost in sales due to the pandemic but Engage just doesn't feel that talked about in general. 

I'm sure that's a very poor metric in which to measure a series success. Fan art is going to attract a pretty particular subset of fans and some individuals works are probably going to gravitate towards such fans over others. And Engage vs Three Houses is probably an excellent example of that, as people are a lot more keen on the Three Houses cast than the Engage cast, but that's not really indicative of how many people are actually buying each game, as you have things like the gameplay being different (and arguably superior in Engage) and even people who become fans of characters in games they don't actually buy (just watching a let's play or support collection on Youtube is enough for some people, or hell even just Heroes).

[Light magic is cool]

It's easily the most well known SRPG series because of Smash Bros.

[genesis]

Its well known, but I wouldn't say mainstream. Honestly, i'm the only gamer of my circle. If I talk with my friends about Fire Emblem, they won't know it or its characters. But If I talk with them about Pokemon and Mario or even something like Mortal Kombat, they will all recognise the IP and its most iconic characters. 

 

Even the most known characters due to smash: Ike, Lucina, Marth... They arent known by the average people, but they are known in the gaming circles. So its not a small franchise but its still niche 

Edited April 28, 2023 by genesis

[Dark Holy Elf]

On 4/24/2023 at 2:35 AM, NotYourKindOfPeople said:

I've heard many fans say that Fire Emblem is a mainstream IP, but is it though? The most selling game in the series has sold 4 million copies, which is very little compared to Nintendo's other popular games like Mario Odyssey (25 mil) or TLOZ: Breath of the Wild (30 mil). Thoughts? 

I mean it's not as mainstream of those... though it is worth noting that until Breath of the Wild, Zelda wasn't that far ahead, I believe the best-selling Zelda before then was around 8M.

As others have said it's a sliding scale of what you consider mainstream.

On 4/25/2023 at 3:10 AM, Armchair General said:

Hey, it takes an while for people to draw shit. Plus, they usually have some other commissions to uphold instead of dropping everything for an new game.

It doesn't take 3 months. At this point the evidence that Engage is having a weaker fan impact is pretty clear. One data point: 3H is getting more fanfics submitted to AO3 per day than Engage is now, let alone comparing Engage to when 3H was new. Now, granted, fan works aren't the only metric of a game's popularity, and it's perhaps unsurprising that 3H, which is praised for writing/characters, is outperforming Engage, which is mainly praised for gameplay... but I still have my doubt about the legs of Engage. 3H just got so much positive word-of-mouth to draw in non-traditional Fire Emblem fans, Engage is not getting that. We'll see, I could easily be wrong.

[Armchair General]

5 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

It doesn't take 3 months. At this point the evidence that Engage is having a weaker fan impact is pretty clear. One data point: 3H is getting more fanfics submitted to AO3 per day than Engage is now, let alone comparing Engage to when 3H was new. Now, granted, fan works aren't the only metric of a game's popularity, and it's perhaps unsurprising that 3H, which is praised for writing/characters, is outperforming Engage, which is mainly praised for gameplay... but I still have my doubt about the legs of Engage. 3H just got so much positive word-of-mouth to draw in non-traditional Fire Emblem fans, Engage is not getting that. We'll see, I could easily be wrong.

Yeah, it kind of depends on what those fanfics are about, tbh.

[NotYourKindOfPeople]

21 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Yeah, it kind of depends on what those fanfics are about, tbh.

Doesn't matter, point still stands that Engage just doesn't have the same community circle that 3H does, and Awakening did before it. It truly is the Fates of the Switch era, where it is popular sure but its predecessor is still talked about more fondly. 

[Windshipping]

Definitely mainstream in the genre, especially in the West.

As far as SRPG are concerned, you will find much more people aware of Fire Emblem than Advance Wars or Valkyria Chronicle, and that's not talking about all others and more "obscure" SRPG like Langrisser, Sakura Wars, Shin Megami Tensei, TTT etc, the only one who could be more popular in the West would be Final Fantasy Tactics, and that's because it has freaking FINAL FANTASY in it (the game are very good, don't get me wrong, love the gameplay too, but "Final Fantasy" helps a lot xD). I say "in the West" because SRPG are much more popular in Japan, Fire Emblem has "relatively" less importance there as it doesn't define an entire genre.

Now does "the average gamer" know about it? Well, if they played Smash Bros, probably, but I wouldn't count on that. I've had players look at my game (very FE-like) and ask whether it was inspired by Dofus.

[Etrurian emperor]

Not really. More like upper B tier franchise.